Unknown: [Music}
Jane: This is But Why: a Podcast for Curious Kids from Vermont
Public. I'm Jane Lindholm. On this show, we take questions
from curious kids just like you, and we find answers. Our last
episode was all about pinnipeds, four-flippered, carnivorous,
ocean dwelling mammals who come up on land to rest and have
their babies. We specifically talked about two of the three
types of pinnipeds, seals and sea lions, but we did not talk
about the third. Do you remember what it is? Walruses! We
promised we would do a bonus episode all about walruses, so
we're back today with our pinniped expert, Adam Ratner, a
marine biologist at the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito,
California. That's a research and rehabilitation center that
takes in sick or abandoned or wounded seals and sea lions and
helps them return to the wild. They do a lot of studying of
these pinnipeds too. Actually, Adam is speaking with us in
front of a group of baby seals living at the center
temporarily, so you might hear them in the background as this
episode goes on. One of the reasons we didn't talk about
walruses in the previous episode was because Adam and the other
people who work at the center don't take care of any.
Adam Ratner: I would love to take care of a walrus, let me
just start by saying that, but there are no walruses in
California. So walruses only live up in the Arctic, in the
cold water. So you'll see them around Alaska and Norway and
kind of the Arctic Circle. They're built for life up in the
Arctic, as opposed to some of these other animals, like the
sea lions or the elephant seals, which aren't so the same way
that you see different animals just in different parts of the
world, polar bears, penguins, they're built for that
environment. And with walruses, they just love that cold up in
the Arctic, and it's where they figured out how to make their
home.
Jacob: Hi, my name is Jacob. Why do walruses look so weird?
Jane: Can you describe a walrus for someone who's never seen
one?
Adam Ratner: Oh, so big. So these animals are, like, 4000
pounds. So that's like most of an NFL football team like, put
together to make this walrus. They actually have long
flippers, kind of like the sea lions. So they've got these big
front flippers. They can tuck their back flippers underneath
them. They can walk around up on land if they need to, tons of
blubber, all that really good fat. And then, of course, the
things that make walruses really special are those tusks. So
they've got these two big tusks, kind of like elephants that
stick down from the front of their face. They also have an
adorable mustache, I would add.
Itai: I'm Itai and I'm five years old, and I live in Gorham,
Maine. Why do walruses have long teeth?
Adam Ratner: So walruses live up on the ice flows. So they jump
into the water, they swim around, and they look for things
like clams and other food. And they can actually use those
tusks to help kind of dig through the sand to find some of
that clam food that might be hiding. But then you also think
about what it takes to get back onto that ice flow, that iceberg
if you will, think about if you're in a swimming pool, you
get to the side of the swimming pool and you want to climb out.
We tend to use our arms. We kind of push off and we climb up. The
walruses don't have those types of arms to help them, so what
they can do instead is use those tusks, put that onto the ice,
and use that to help kind of prop them up onto the ice and
climb.
Jane: Do walruses have teeth other than those two visible
tusks?
Adam Ratner: They do. It's very different than the teeth that
other seals and sea lions have. So when we think about the teeth
in our mouths, we have sharp teeth. Those are the canines,
and we've got the flat teeth, the molars in the back. The
molars are for chewing. And walruses have almost all molars
because they eat clams. You don't really need super sharp
teeth for the clams. You gotta chew the clams. So they've got a
full mouth of molars to help them eat their food.
Andy: Hi, I'm Andy. I'm five from Boston, Massachusetts, and
I want to know why walruses migrate. Why don't they just
stay in the north?
Adam Ratner: So walruses do migrate, but they all stay in
the north. So it's a little bit confusing. I always view
migration as traveling between your home and your favorite
restaurant. And some animals, your favorite restaurant is
going to be really far away from your home. So like California
sea lions, the boys, home is Southern California favorite
restaurant could be Vancouver, up in Canada. For other animals,
the restaurant might be closer, and that's the case with
walruses. So they're always going to stay in the Arctic
Circle, but they might move from different beaches and ice flows
to go find different food.
Jane: So given that they're not leaving the north, they're not
leaving the Arctic Circle, but they are migrating. Katara is
thinking about another place that has a lot of very cold
water and very cold temperatures, but no walruses.
My
Katara: My name is Katara. I'm six years old, and I live in St
Petersburg, Florida. Why do walruses only live in the North
Pole. Why don't they live in the South Pole?
Adam Ratner: You know, sometimes it just depends where you show
up first and where you make your home. So we see some animals,
even though the conditions are pretty similar between the
Arctic and Antarctic. You think about polar bears. They only
live up in the northern hemisphere, not in the southern
hemisphere. Penguins only down in Antarctica, not in the North
Pole. And the walrus has fall into that group. They kind of
came to the Arctic a long, long, long, long, long, long, long
time ago and realized that that is their favorite place to be.
And honestly, I think it would be a bit daunting to try and get
to the South Pole from there, so they figured they might just
stay up there for a little bit longer.
Jane: What else is cool about walruses that we should know,
because most of us will never have an opportunity to see one
in the wild.
Adam Ratner: Walruses are just very cool. The mustache is
adorable. Highly recommend. The babies are really big, so when
they're born, they're close to 100 pounds, and they're going to
spend a really long time with mom. They can spend between one
and two years with their mom, which is much longer than a lot
of the seals and sea lions. And they love contact. So as babies,
walruses loved being hugged by their mom. It's very, very cute.
And then the other thing, from my perspective, that makes them
really cool is, because I'm really interested in animal
behavior is walruses can make lots of really different sounds.
They can make lots of different vocalizations, both in water and
out of water. So compared to the elephant seals with just that
cackle, walruses make a whole bunch of different very cool
sounds.
Jane: Can you mimic one?
Adam Ratner: I was so afraid you were going to ask that question.
They can make a bunch. They can make a, I've actually seen
walruses whistle. I've seen walruses make a sound that
sounds like a, like a gutter, like a, like a rain, like
flushing of a toilet, almost. Yeah, they're all over the map.
Jane: So the answer is, No, you won't make the sound.
Adam Ratner: It would be really bad. It would be really bad. It
wouldn't do them justice.
Jane: Since Adam is not a walrus impersonator, we found some
recordings of walrus sounds to play for you instead.
Walrus: [walrus sounds]
Jane: Wow, they do sound pretty unique. Walruses may not look
like any other animals in the animal kingdom, but they're
still relatives of the seals and sea lions we talked about in our
last episode. I wanted to know how Adam got into working with
pinnipeds like these and learning so much about these
very cool animals. What did he want to be when he was a kid,
for example?
Adam Ratner: I wanted to be this. So I always joke that a
lot of people, when they're kids, they want to grow up to
work with dolphins or whales or seals, and I just didn't outgrow
that. My focus was on research though. I was a scientist, I
wanted to better understand where these animals go. So
what's their migration? How do they talk to each other? How do
they learn? So I spent time out on boats, and I spent times in
labs looking at birds and fish and marine mammals. And before I
came to the Marine Mammal Center, I kind of had this
moment where I saw a lot of these seals and sea lions
getting sick. I saw them being impacted by trash. I saw them
being impacted by things like climate change, and I realized
that I couldn't just stay on a boat or be in a windowless lab.
I wanted to help give them a second chance, and that's what
the Marine Mammal Center does. We're able to help the animals
that are sick, but we're also learning so much about them, and
I've got all of these wonderful people, listeners on the podcast
today, people that visit the Marine Mammal Center or go to
our website that also want to help. So we've got this whole
army of heroes for the environment that's going to
create a healthy ocean for marine mammals and people alike.
Jane: Thank you to Adam Ratner, Director of conservation
engagement at the Marine Mammal Center, and thanks to the center
for letting us visit. You can check out their website,
MarineMammalCenter.org, to learn more about their work and the
animals they care for. The walrus sounds you heard earlier
are courtesy of the Watkins Marine Mammal Sound Database,
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the New Bedford
Whaling Museum. As always, if you have a question about
anything, have an adult record, you asking it on a smartphone
using an app like voice memos, then have your adult email your
file to questions@ButWhyKids.org.But Why
is produced by Melody Bodette, Sarah Baik and me, Jane Lindholm
at Vermont Public and distributed by PRX. Our video
producer is Joey Palumbo, and our theme music is by Luke
Reynolds. If you like our show, please have your adults help you
give us a thumbs up or a review on whatever podcast platform you
use to listen to us. We'll be back next week with an all new
episode. Until then, stay curious.